Hello! My name is Alexis Rago. I was born in Toronto and lived in the city of Brampton for the majority of my life. When I turned eighteen, my best friend and I decided to move to the city of St. Catharines as a change of scenery. We have an apartment together and got jobs working as waitresses in Niagara Falls. Growing up, my parents owned a cottage not too far from Niagara so we would visit often. I always admired how beautiful the falls are, and the many tourist’s attractions located within the town. Although I loved visiting Niagara Falls, I never thought that I would become local to the Niagara region, but here I am.
When I finished high school I knew I wanted to take my education to the next level, but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with it. I decided that I would take the year off and work full time in order to save up. I then applied to Brock as a geography major, wanting to specialize in environmental geography. However, in order to do that, I had to take physical geography which I didn’t enjoy learning. During my first year, I had a history course that really caught my attention and it was then that I decided to change my major to pursue history. This being my second year at Brock, I now major in history and have many different kinds of past events and adventures to learn about. When I am finished University, I want to complete teacher’s college and become a history teacher. Teaching has always been a passion of mine and a goal I would like to achieve.
Other than school and work, I try to keep a healthy lifestyle. I attend the gym at least 4-5 times a week and try to maintain a good diet. During my spare hours, I enjoy binge watching historical action movies and shows. I also enjoy exploring the many hiking trails and waterfalls located in St. Catharines.
I am very happy with the courses that I have chosen for my second year. Digital history is one of my many choices, and it gives me an opportunity to not only look at the events that took place in the past but also a chance to look at what positive and negative effects technology has had on the world today.
I find it fascinating how advanced technology is and how much it can be used as an educational tool. It provides us with easy answers and makes learning and studying that much faster and more efficient. However, technology has also had many negative effects on societies. It has drastically changed the way people communicate with one another. Instead of people going out of their way to have more personal, face to face conversations, technology has made it possible to talk to each other from anywhere, anytime, losing a certain connection with others. When people are together, they are usually lost in their technology, or wasting valuable time surfing the web and checking social media. Social media has had some negative effects on society as well, pursuing people to look, think and act a certain way in order to fit in with the latest updates and trends. This affects people’s originality and creates problems amongst others who want to stand out and be different.
With the bad, comes the good. Technology allows for diversity amongst the world and helps to educate people on the different cultures and traditions that exist. This makes it possible for lifestyles to blend and become more modernized by learning new traditions aside from their own. This also gives people more opportunity to travel and find jobs that may not be available in their own country. It is also a plus that technology can hold a limitless amount of data making it easier to keep and share documents from the past without running out of space. This is a positive side to technology that historians may find very useful when going over past events. It gives them access to data at the touch of a button, compared to the earlier years when that was not possible. Technology can be an amazing tool when used properly and in moderation. Although useful in many aspects of life, it should not be relied on, which is sometimes the problem.
HIST2P26 